Wheaten and Blue wheaten Marans Discussion Thread

[Debbi]

when i bought potatos for planting thwy were kinda soft hole potatos i could tell
were the eyes were and simply cut in ¼ pices and pla.nted . this is my second year growinf a small patch

This is my first year with potatoes, got them for free at the feed store! They were all growing together in the sack, so I got a Wal-Mart sized sack of them for free! I cut some of the bigger ones in half, making sure they had eyes, more like sprouts on these! The plants are growing strong, and are just over my knees in height (I'm only 5'2"). Flowering, and growing great even in this heat. Can't wait to see what I get in the fall!! Next year I'll start much earlier, I din't get these planted til the end of May. I also wanted to get the Yukon Golds, but hey, who could pass up free Cobblers?? Next year, I'll go for the Golds.

 

[Debbi]

Your Grandchick is growing up to be a pretty girl, Randy! She is getting in those "black dots" on her hackle feathers now. She is 5 1/2 weeks old now, and such a sweet chick. She has a much softer wheaten color on her back and wings, more so than the others pictured a page or so back, so I think she will have the 3 very distinct colors. She and two other Marans are still in the shop room! It's been so hot and dry here, and the stress of trying to assimilate them into the flock is stressful enough, I am afraid the stress and heat combined would kill them. So now, I take them out to the run to be slowly introduced to big Clyde and one of the older pullets who always stay in the run. When it starts to get too hot, they are running into the carrier I use to transport them like, "take us inside now please!"

Not that it's any cooler in the house, the AC went down, so it was 95* inside, but at least they don't have to stress about getting picked on and finding food and water, and they have a fan and ceiling fan. At this rate, they'll be laying before they get outside!

Somebody, send us some rain, would ya??

 

[dncarr09]

Thanks, I actually found out is an Olive egger. The breeder told me that she breeds her blue coppers to her blue Ameraucana for her olive eggers. I got an accidental OE but she is beautiful.

 

[Debbi]

Thanks, I actually found out is an Olive egger. The breeder told me that she breeds her blue coppers to her blue Ameraucana for her olive eggers. I got an accidental OE but she is beautiful.

Good deal! Now you can have olive eggs as well!

 

[berkeleysprings]

verry nice debbi. we need to get you a rooster. i added on to my outside run to giive the wheatens more room outside thats safe from preditors and i will be putting new roosters in the main cooop. hopefully the girls wont kill them
they are so mean to outhrer chickens and will attack a full grow roo
so in another 6 weeks il have eggs

 

[Debbi]

I know what you mean about the hens, my BCM gals are all vipers too. Luckily and just by coincidence, the hens I culled out of the flock seem to have been the worst bullies too, so the intro of these new babies may not be so bad. Now, if we could just get some cooler weather, I'd be good to try it. You'll have to post some pics of your new boys, I would love to see how they are coming along. I went to take pics yesterday of my girl, and the batteries were dead in the camera. I had just recharged them, so I think the heat is draining them? Does anyone put the batteries in the fridge in this kind of heat??

 

[berkeleysprings]

I know what you mean about the hens, my BCM gals are all vipers too. Luckily and just by coincidence, the hens I culled out of the flock seem to have been the worst bullies too, so the intro of these new babies may not be so bad. Now, if we could just get some cooler weather, I'd be good to try it. You'll have to post some pics of your new boys, I would love to see how they are coming along. I went to take pics yesterday of my girl, and the batteries were dead in the camera. I had just recharged them, so I think the heat is draining them? Does anyone put the batteries in the fridge in this kind of heat??

not sure on the batteries. I think batteries have a memory so it's important that you run the battery wait til its dead and then recharge it. if you only run the battery halfway down and you charge it. that's all the memory its gonna have. cold always kills my batteries on my camera

 

[Debbi]

I'm starting to think it has to do with the heat here. I just put the same batteries in the camera, and took some pics. The camera before was showing the red, low battery icon on the screen, but now it takes pics?? After all of that, now BYC won't let me upload the pic!

 

[OldChurchEggery1]

I had a small test batch of eggs in my incubator (some Jersey Giants and a couple of Wheaten Marans eggs). All hatching was complete as of yesterday morning and all 4 eggs that made it to the hatcher hatched! They were collected when the temperatures were really high (towards the end of June) and made it through a nearly 20-hour power outage. There were 6 originally from the test batch so I'm pleased with the results: 3 JGs and 1 Wheaten Marans. I checked the wing feathers at hatch and am cautiously optimistic it's a pullet. I'll know for certain in just a few weeks, though! I have had good luck with feather sexing the Marans at time of hatch. Hopefully in a few weeks I will have a lot more hatch and I can make notes about those, too. I got some spiral bandettes and a toe punch so I'll be able to track everyone over time.

 

[berkeleysprings]

nice . post some pictures when u can